#14 - The Black Sleep (1956)
(dir. Reginald Le Borg)
Dr. Gordon Ramsay (yes, really) is a surgeon who was falsely convicted of murder, and on the eve of his execution, is visited by an old teacher of his named Dr. Cadman (Basil Rathbone). To fool the jailors, Cadman gives the man a drug he calls "the black sleep", which causes the patient to appear dead until an antidote is administered. They use this to escape the hangman's noose, and Cadman takes Ramsay on as his personal assistant for a questionable series of operations. The research seems to mostly involve brain surgery on living patients who have been given the black sleep. Actually it's not so much surgery as it is just kind of poking some electrodes around in there and writing down what happens.
This was a pretty good movie. Rathbone is great as the mad doctor, and we get Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. in small but fun roles. The atmosphere is great, too - most of the movie takes place in an old castle, complete with hidden passageways, a secret laboratory, and a dungeon. Some of the best scenes involve Cadman's failed experiments who are kept in the dungeon as prisoners.
If you like classic gothic horror, I definitely recommend this one. Even though it is an American film, stylistically it felt more like a Hammer production to me. I might just be thinking that because Rathbone's mad scientist is very similar to Peter Cushing's take on Dr. Frankenstein. That is definitely a good thing.
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